Living from Our Union with Christ
Doctrine: Understanding how union with Christ shapes our identity, freedom from sin’s rule, and growth in holiness.
Devotion: Learning to bring our thoughts, desires, relationships, and daily choices into fellowship with Christ.
Discipling: Helping another person connect the good news with a specific area of life through Scripture, prayer, example, and patient encouragement.
Main passages: ;
Supporting passages: ; ;
Memory verse: , using the NET2 Bible.
Our Purpose
By the end of this session, we should be better able to explain what it means to belong to Christ and share in the benefits of his death and resurrection. We should also be able to identify a practical pattern of turning from sin and pursuing Christlike attitudes and actions, depending on the Holy Spirit rather than attempting to change through determination alone.
Our aim is not simply improved behavior. It is a life increasingly shaped by fellowship with Christ: knowing him, becoming like him, and making him known. These belong together. As we receive his Word, trust his promises, and respond in obedience, his grace reaches into the ordinary places where we actually live.
1. Beginning Together
In Session 5, we considered the risen Lord and the gift of his Spirit. Jesus is alive and reigning, and those who belong to him have not been left to follow him in their own strength. The Spirit brings us into life with God, assures us that we are his children, and helps us walk in faithfulness.
We now consider more closely what belonging to Christ means for everyday life. The good news does not remain at the beginning of our Christian experience while we move on to another method of growth. Christ’s saving work establishes our relationship with God and continues to shape how we understand ourselves, resist sin, and love others.
D3DStart introduced daily life with Jesus through Scripture, prayer, and obedience. Here we deepen those foundations. Why can Christians resist patterns that once ruled them? How do we pursue change without trying to earn God’s acceptance? What should we do when our conduct seems painfully inconsistent with the person we want to become?
Looking Back
Where did you seek the Spirit’s help during the week? Perhaps you asked for patience, strength to resist temptation, or courage to do something difficult. What encouraged you, and what remains a struggle?
Discuss
- When you think about becoming more like Christ, what gives you hope? What tends to discourage you?
- What is the difference between trying to earn someone’s acceptance and responding to love you have already received?
A Prayer to Begin
Father, thank you for bringing us into life with your Son. Help us understand what you have given us in him. By your Spirit, renew our thinking, expose what needs to change, and teach us to respond with faith and willing obedience. Let your grace shape our lives for your glory and the good of others. Amen.
2. Read — A New Life in Christ
Read in the NET2 Bible.
Paul addresses a serious misunderstanding of grace: if God’s grace answers our sin, should we continue sinning so that grace increases? His answer begins with our relationship to Christ. Believers have been brought into solidarity with the crucified and risen Savior. His death and resurrection therefore have consequences for the way we live.
Notice the movement of the passage. Paul explains what has happened to those who belong to Christ, calls them to reckon with that truth, and then tells them how to respond with their bodies and actions.
Look Closely
- How does Paul connect believers with Christ’s death and resurrection?
- What does he say about slavery to sin?
- What are believers to consider true about themselves in verse 11?
- What practical responses follow in verses 12–14?
Now read in the NET2 Bible.
Paul again begins with what is true of believers in Christ. He then addresses desires, speech, relationships, and the shared life of the church. The passage moves from our life with the risen Lord to the practical work of putting sinful conduct to death and clothing ourselves with Christlike character.
Look Closely
- How do verses 1–4 describe the believer’s life and future?
- Which attitudes and actions must be put away?
- What qualities are believers called to put on?
- How do Christ’s forgiveness, Word, and name shape this new way of living?
3. Doctrine — Receiving God’s Truth
We Belong to Christ
Union with Christ means that, through the Spirit and by faith, we belong to the Savior and share in the saving benefits he gives. We are not united to him physically, nor do we become divine or lose our personal identity. We enter a real, living relationship in which his saving work determines our standing before God and becomes the source of our new life.
describes this relationship in terms of Christ’s death and resurrection. Paul appeals to baptism as he explains believers’ identification with the crucified and risen Lord. The Christian belongs to a new reality: no longer under sin’s rightful claim to rule, but alive to God in Christ.
This relationship is personal as well as deeply consequential. We do not receive a collection of blessings detached from Jesus. In him we receive forgiveness, righteousness, reconciliation, and life. The one who gave himself for us is the one in whom we now live.
Sin’s Rule Has Been Broken
Being dead to sin does not mean Christians no longer experience temptation or commit sins. Paul would not need to tell believers to resist sin if its presence had disappeared. Rather, a decisive change has occurred in their relationship to its dominion.
Sin is no longer the master to whom we owe obedience. Its demands may feel familiar and forceful, but they do not define our allegiance or exhaust our possibilities. Through Christ, we have been freed to offer ourselves to God.
This gives us grounds for both realism and hope. We should neither pretend that the struggle is over nor conclude that change is impossible. A persistent pattern may require sustained attention, practical safeguards, and help from others. Yet we address it as people who belong to a new Lord.
Our Standing and Our Growth Belong Together
Justification and sanctification are distinct but inseparable gifts of God’s grace. In justification, God declares believers righteous on the basis of Christ’s saving work, received through faith. In sanctification, he sets us apart for himself and progressively forms holiness in our lives.
Our growth does not supply a missing part of the righteousness by which we are accepted. Neither does acceptance make growth unnecessary. The grace that brings us into a right relationship with God also teaches us to live as his people.
We therefore avoid two errors. We do not make obedience the price of God’s welcome, and we do not use his welcome to excuse disobedience. We pursue holiness because we belong to him and because his ways are good.
We Learn to Live from What Is True
calls believers to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. This is not positive thinking that creates a new reality. It is faith taking seriously the reality God has established.
Suppose resentment begins to govern your thoughts. Remembering your identity in Christ does not instantly remove the hurt. It does, however, challenge the conclusion that resentment must direct your response. You belong to the Lord who has forgiven you, loves you, and calls you into a different way of life.
Christian identity is therefore more than a reassuring label. It gives direction to our choices. We learn to ask, “Since I belong to Christ, what response is fitting here?”
Renewal Reaches Our Desires and Relationships
does not limit holiness to avoiding a few visible offenses. Paul addresses greed, anger, malice, dishonest speech, and the way we treat one another. He also calls for compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love.
Putting off sin and putting on Christlike character belong together. A person learning to stop harsh speech also needs to learn patient listening and truthful, gracious words. Someone turning from greed needs to practice gratitude, contentment, and generosity.
Renewal reaches beneath outward conduct to what we value and seek. Our actions often reveal desires for control, recognition, comfort, or security. These ordinary desires become destructive when we pursue them against God’s will or at another person’s expense. The Spirit uses God’s truth to reorder our loves, not merely restrain our behavior.
God’s Work Enables Our Responsible Action
Read . Paul brings our active obedience and God’s enabling work together. God’s presence within us is a reason to act, not a reason to remain passive.
We cannot manufacture Christlike character independently of him. Yet dependence does not mean waiting until obedience feels effortless. We pray, attend to Scripture, make decisions, establish wise habits, and seek help because God is at work in us.
Read . Jesus’ picture of the vine and branches keeps this activity rooted in communion. Fruit grows through dependence on him. His words, love, and commands belong within that relationship, not outside it as a separate program of self-improvement.
4. Devotion — Bringing Everyday Life into Fellowship with Christ
Begin with Christ, Not with a Verdict on Yourself
When we notice failure, we may immediately label ourselves: impatient, hopeless, selfish, or incapable of change. Honest confession names sin accurately, but condemning labels can turn our attention away from Christ and toward an imagined fixed identity.
Begin instead with what God has done. Through faith in Jesus, you receive the forgiveness secured by his death. You belong to him, and his Spirit is at work in you. This gives you freedom to acknowledge what is wrong without pretending that your failure is the whole truth about you.
We do not need to soften sin to preserve hope. Our hope rests in a Savior who deals truthfully and graciously with sinners.
A Guided Practice: Remember, Put Off, and Put On
Allow approximately ten to fifteen minutes. Keep open. Choose one ordinary situation rather than attempting to address every weakness at once.
1. Remember whose you are.
Read verses 1–4 and 12 slowly. Consider the relationship God has given you in Christ. Thank him for his love and for the future you share with the risen Savior.
You might pray, Father, I belong to you through Jesus. Help me face this part of my life honestly, trusting your grace rather than hiding or defending myself.
2. Name the pattern truthfully.
Identify a recurring response that needs to change. Perhaps you interrupt when you feel overlooked, withdraw to punish someone, exaggerate to appear successful, or speak sharply when plans are disrupted.
Describe a particular example. Ask what you wanted in that moment and how your response treated God or another person. Avoid speculation about hidden motives you cannot confidently identify. Begin with what is clear.
3. Confess and receive forgiveness.
Tell God what was wrong without blaming another person for your choice. Thank him for the forgiveness Christ secured. Where appropriate, prepare to acknowledge your wrongdoing to the person affected and make a fitting repair.
Confession is an expression of returning to the Father, not a payment that earns his willingness to receive you.
4. Identify what to put off and what to put on.
Use the passage to name both sides of the change. If you need to put off dishonest speech, what would truthful speech look like? If you need to put off cruelty, how could compassion shape your next response?
Make the step concrete. “Be more loving” may express a worthy desire, but “listen without interrupting and ask a sincere question before replying” gives that desire a practical form.
5. Ask for help and act.
Bring the planned response to God in prayer. Ask for the Spirit’s help, then consider what preparation would support obedience. You may need to pause before replying, change a routine, remove an opportunity for sin, or invite a trusted believer to follow up.
These steps are not a technique that guarantees immediate transformation. They are ways of responding to God’s Word in the relationship his grace has given.
Let the Word Dwell Richly
places Christ’s Word within the shared life of his people. We receive it, teach and encourage one another with it, and respond in worship. Personal reading matters, but God has not designed growth as a private undertaking.
Continue the Scripture and prayer rhythm you have already begun. Return to a short passage long enough to understand and remember it. Ask what it reveals about God, what it exposes in your response, and how it directs you toward Christlike action.
Memorizing in NET2 can help connect these moments to the wider day. Work, conversation, rest, service, and responsibility all belong under the name of the Lord Jesus.
Pray through the Reality of Your Day
Praise, Thanksgiving, Confession, Intercession, and Petition help us bring our whole lives before God. Praise Christ for his goodness and authority. Thank him for a particular gift. Confess a response that contradicted his character. Intercede for the person involved, and ask for wisdom and strength to love them.
Such prayer keeps growth personal. We are not simply reviewing our performance; we are speaking with the Father through the Son, helped by the Spirit. We learn to desire what pleases him because we are learning to know and love him.
Recognize Growth without Demanding Perfection
Growth may appear in a quicker confession, a less defensive response, or a willingness to receive correction. Sometimes you will recognize temptation earlier than before, even while the struggle remains difficult.
Give thanks for these evidences of grace without becoming complacent. If you fail, return to God and reconsider what practical help is needed. Repeated failure is a reason for honest attention and support, not a reason to declare Christ unable to change you.
Some patterns involve harm that requires firm boundaries, pastoral intervention, or qualified professional help. Forgiveness and compassion do not require hiding wrongdoing or leaving someone exposed to danger.
5. Discipling — Helping Another Person Live from the Gospel
Share: Connect Truth with a Particular Struggle
When someone describes a difficulty, resist the urge to give a general instruction immediately. Listen carefully enough to understand the situation. Then consider a passage that genuinely addresses it.
You might say, “ begins with who we are in Christ before describing what needs to change. Could we read it together and consider how both parts speak to this?”
The aim is not to attach a verse to advice already decided upon. It is to help the person understand and respond to God’s Word.
Model: Let Others See Repentance and Dependence
You do not need to present yourself as someone who has mastered Christian living. Appropriate honesty about your own need for grace can help another person approach God without pretending.
Share a modest example of a change you are pursuing, including how Scripture has corrected you and what obedience has involved. Keep the focus on Christ’s faithfulness rather than making your experience the standard others must reproduce.
Where your conduct has hurt the person you are helping, begin with your own responsibility. A sincere apology may teach more about gospel-shaped living than an extended explanation.
Guide: Choose a Faithful Next Step
Help the person distinguish a worthy desire from a workable response. Ask questions that preserve their responsibility before God rather than taking control of their decisions.
- What does the passage say is true of those who belong to Christ?
- What response needs to be put away?
- What Christlike response could take its place?
- What help or preparation would support that step?
- When could we talk again and pray together?
Follow-up should be encouragement, not surveillance. Ask what they are learning, where they struggled, and how you can help. Give thanks for genuine growth, and remain willing to revisit the passage.
Practice Together
Consider this fictional situation:
“Whenever someone questions my work, I become defensive. Later I regret what I said, but in the moment I feel that I have to protect myself.”
In pairs, practice listening before offering advice. Read and discuss how truthfulness, humility, gentleness, and patience might shape a different response. Identify one practical step and pray briefly together.
Do not assume every criticism is fair. A person may need to answer an inaccurate accusation or establish a boundary. The question is how to do so truthfully and faithfully under Christ’s lordship.
6. Living This Session During the Week
With Christ
Return to and during your existing Scripture and prayer times. Notice how each passage connects God’s saving action with our response. Begin memorizing in NET2, keeping its surrounding context in view.
With Others
Ask a trusted believer to pray about one area in which you want to grow. Share only what is appropriate, but be specific enough that the request has substance. If possible, arrange a brief conversation later in the week.
In Everyday Life
Practice one putting-off and putting-on response. Prepare before the situation arises, ask for the Spirit’s help, and review the experience honestly afterward. Give thanks for help received, confess wrongdoing where necessary, and identify what you are learning.
When We Meet Again
Come ready to share one way the good news is reaching into ordinary life. An unresolved struggle is welcome too. Next, we will examine the opposition we face from the world, the flesh, and the devil, and how to stand firm in Christ with humility and hope.
7. Closing — The Good News Takes Shape in Our Lives
Through Christ, we have received forgiveness, reconciliation, and new life. United to him, we are called to live in keeping with the grace we have received. Sin remains an enemy, but it is no longer the lord to whom we belong.
Knowing Christ, becoming like him, and making him known grow together. As his Word shapes our thinking and his Spirit enables our obedience, the good news becomes visible in truthful speech, patient love, generous service, and humble repentance. This is not a life we create apart from him. It is the life we learn to live in fellowship with him.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for joining us to your Son and giving us life in him. Help us believe what you say about us and respond faithfully to your Word. Expose the attitudes and actions we need to put away, and clothe us with the character of Christ. By your Spirit, teach us to love, forgive, speak truthfully, and serve with humility. Give us patience as we grow and wisdom as we encourage others. May all we do increasingly honor the Lord Jesus, through whom we give you thanks. Amen.